Colorado Personalized License Plates

Colorado's personalized plate program is popular enough that the DMV keeps a running list of rejected requests, roughly 140 in a recent year alone. Before you submit yours, here's exactly what it costs, how many characters you actually get depending on what you drive, what gets an application bounced, and how long you'll actually be waiting once it's approved.

Quick Answer: Character Limits by Vehicle Type

Cost and Character Rules

Here is what a personalized plate costs and the character limits by vehicle type.

What a Personalized Plate Is

A custom combination of letters, numbers, and spaces on a standard or eligible specialty background, chosen by you, reviewed and approved by the state before it ever gets manufactured.

Full Cost Breakdown

A one-time $60 initial personalization fee, then $25 every year after at renewal, both on top of whatever your standard registration already costs.

Rules on Using the Number Zero

Only in limited cases. Zero is reserved for Call Letter plates and for remanufacturing certain serialized plates permitted by statute, not something you can freely drop into a standard personalized request.

How to Apply

Most requests go through DMV.Colorado.gov online. A few categories, FCC call letter plates being the main one, require an in-person visit to your county motor vehicle office instead.

Content Rules and Rejections

Not every combination makes it past the DMV's review.

Reasons a Request Gets Rejected

Anything offensive, vulgar, or discriminatory, plus anything that could be confused with an official government or emergency vehicle plate, or that infringes on trademarked material. The state rejected around 140 combinations for these reasons in a recent year alone, so the review is genuinely active, not a rubber stamp.

Appealing a Rejected Request

Yes. A DMV team periodically reviews rejected requests, and you can appeal an automatic rejection if you think your combination was flagged unfairly.

Timing and Keeping Your Plate

A few practical questions come up once your application is submitted.

Total Processing Time

About 6 to 8 weeks from application to manufactured plate, with the DMV notifying you once it's ready for pickup at your designated office.

Moving Before Your Plates Arrive

Update your address with your county office right away. Skip that step and you risk a delay, or worse, your personalized plates getting lost in the mail entirely.

Holding a Combination Long Term

Only as long as the underlying registration stays active and you keep paying the $25 annual renewal. Let the registration lapse and the combination can eventually become available for someone else to request.

Transferring a Combination to a New Vehicle

Yes, since the combination is tied to you as the owner rather than welded to one specific car. Updating your registration at your county office carries it over to a replacement vehicle.

Cost Details and Practical Questions

A handful of smaller details that come up once you're actually ready to apply.

Checking Availability Before Applying

Colorado's online system generally flags an unavailable combination the moment you submit your request, though there isn't a separate free lookup tool to check ahead of time beyond just applying.

Cost of Personalizing a Specialty Plate

Yes. You pay the standard personalization fee on top of whatever the specialty background itself already costs, so combining the two runs more than personalizing a plain standard plate.

Consequences of Missing the Annual Fee

You lose the personalized combination, and your plate reverts to a standard issue at your next registration cycle, since that ongoing fee is exactly what keeps the personalized status active year after year.

Motorcycle Personalization Cost

The fee structure is the same, $60 initial plus $25 annual, but the character limit drops to 6 instead of 7, reflecting the smaller physical plate size motorcycles actually use.

Spaces and Hyphens in a Combination

Spaces are generally allowed within your character limit, though hyphens and other symbols depend on the specific plate format, since some backgrounds have less flexible layouts than others.

Sales Tax on the Personalization Fee

No. The personalization fee is treated as a DMV service charge, not a taxable sale, so it isn't subject to the sales tax that would apply to an actual vehicle purchase.

Gifting a Combination to a Family Member

Not directly. The combination is tied to your registration, so a family member would need to submit their own application for that same combination once it becomes available, rather than simply inheriting the physical plate, since Colorado ties personalization to the registered owner, not the plate object itself.

First Step Before Applying

Check availability through the online system and have two or three backup combinations ready, since a popular first choice can get taken between the moment you think of it and the moment you actually submit payment.

Sources referenced: Colorado DMV (dmv.colorado.gov), Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (AIR program), Colorado Revised Statutes Title 42.